SUGAR-COATED TRAUMA

Last week, BC Stealth Minister, Colin Hansen, was found at one of our major hospitals explaining away the old man who had spent days in the hall. It was either New Westminster's Royal Columbian or some similar bunker in the Interior.

Hansen, was as always, smooth and re-assuring. "These things happen and we are working very hard to make sure they don't happen again."

Or homilies to that effect.

A few days later, he was hurrying $1 Million over to St. Paul's Hospital to keep the lights on!

The second largest hospital in the province is crumbling. It is a huff and a puff away from becoming a pile of dust on Burrard Street.

Then, yesterday, the icing on the donut.

Royal Columbian, having run out of room to serve their clients - whom we quaintly like to call medical patients - were being warehoused at the nearby Tim Hortons.

All of which speaks to a major and as yet unaddressed issue.

Has anyone in government or the snivel service given any passing thought to health care planning?

Have they asked themselves a few cogent questions, like, for instance...

How many hospital beds do we have How many do we need? How many will we need next year and five years from now? And where are these beds and these needs? And how much might all of this cost us? And from which magic fountain will we get the gold?

I am sure that, if pressed, the good Minister and his adoring minions will insist that they are indeed all over these concerns. That they are planning up the yin yang.

But we know that is not the case.

Or how else to explain cardio and ostio care in the line that used to serve double doubles?